Nestlé - Ethics and Credibility in Business Communications

Ethics & Credibility in Business Communications

Colleen DeStefano

COM/295

March 28, 2016

Mr. David Parsons

Nestlé

Nestlé is the biggest food company in the world, with a market capitalization which is more than 247 billion dollars as of May 2015. Nestlé’s origins date back to 1866, when two separate Swiss enterprises were founded that would later form the core of Nestlé. In the succeeding decades, the two competing enterprises aggressively expanded their businesses throughout Europe and the United States. The company grew significantly during the First World War and again following the Second World War, expanding its offerings beyond its early condensed milk and infant formula products. Throughout history the Nestlé Company has been accused by many experts and organizations around the world for unethical business practices in the way the company conducts its business.

On July 7, 1977 the company was involved in serious boycotts which ruined their overall ethical reputation. One of the most critical issues that Nestlé has been criticized for is the promotion of the use of infant formula to mothers across the world. Many believe that Nestlé’s strategy for promoting its infant formula was misleading and harmful and violates amendable the marketing of breast milk substitutes.

Nestlé's marketing campaign encouraged mothers across the world to use bottle feeding instead of breast feeding. Nestlé even implied that malnourished mothers and mothers with twins did not have the ability to breastfeed their children, despite the fact that many international health organizations claimed that there is no sufficient evidence to support this statement which could put both the mothers and babies life in danger (Krasny 2012). Nestlé convinced consumers that the products were indispensable and misrepresented them by offering desirable and unattainable concepts, and provided mothers with samples to get them hooked.

The World Health Organization found children in developing countries who consumed the Nestle's infant-formula had mortality rates five to ten times greater than that of breast-fed children. The problem was Nestle's ominous campaign of appointing uniformed nurses to distribute the baby formula to poor mothers for free, long enough for lactating mother's milk to dry up. The mother and child now became entirely dependent on Nestle's infant formula, and since most of them could not afford the formula, they gave their children an insufficient quantity of the formula. (Krasny, 2012) The formula also required clean water, which most mothers could not access. This resulted in children not receiving the nutrients they required at a time when they needed it the most.